National Geographic Announces ‘Expedition: Saving Our Seas’ Narrated by Auliʻi Cravalho
National Geographic has unveiled the trailer and premiere date for Expedition: Saving Our Seas, a one-hour documentary special narrated by Moana star and ocean conservationist Auliʻi Cravalho.
Global Explorers Track Environmental Change Across Five Basins
The documentary showcases the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Ocean Expeditions, a multiyear scientific research and storytelling initiative covering all five ocean basins to document the impact of rapid environmental change. Spanning from pole to pole and seashore to seafloor, National Geographic Explorers study the world’s oceans by merging advanced technology with local insights from coastal populations.
"Moana" star Auli'i Cravalho is the voice of a new National Geographic documentary looking at the ways to preserve our oceans. "Expedition: Saving Our Seas" premieres Nov. 13 on Nat Geo and streams the next day on Disney+ and Hulu. https://t.co/fPuTJHn8VE
Among the featured deployments, a cohort of researchers aboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel Falkor (too) used the remotely operated vehicle SuBastian to observe depths nearly 13,000 feet below the surface in the Southern Ocean. That team included oceanographer Dr. Andrew Thurber, biological oceanographer Dr. Kim Bernard, and microbial oceanographer Dr. Allison Fong. Their expedition revealed three initial findings: the planet’s most southerly known deep-sea hydrothermal vent, aggregations of egg-bearing Antarctic krill sitting 3,000 feet deep, and the initial live observation of a giant Antarctic gonate squid.
Pacific, Indian, and Arctic Ocean Fieldwork
In the Pacific, Dr. Bernard returned alongside marine ecologist Dr. Leigh Torres and the local Māori community to canvas New Zealand’s South Taranaki Bight in tracking blue whales and krill prey, while Explorer Dr. Anya Brown stress-tested coral for heat tolerance in the Cook Islands. Further south and east, Explorer Sheena Talma and her Seychellois team trained on deep-ocean camera lander systems off the coast of South Africa more than 10,000 feet below the Indian Ocean’s surface. Along the Gambian coastline in the Atlantic, marine ecologist and Explorer Maiyai Taal Hocheimy trains local students to measure ocean depth and currents to address rising sea dangers.
In the Arctic Ocean—which is warming at four times the rate of the rest of the planet—marine biogeochemist Kristina Brown conducted the first-known scientific study of the Sherman Basin. Invited by the Inuit community of Gjoa Haven, Nunavut, Brown worked in partnership with Inuk elder Saul Aksalook Qirqniq and community members to chart an unseen seafloor. Deep-ocean scientist Dr. Katy Croff Bell, founder of the Ocean Discovery League, tied the various global expeditions together, noting in the promotional materials that humanity has only observed about 0.001% of the deep ocean.
Special Premieres November 13 on National Geographic
The special premieres Friday, November 13, at 9 p.m. EST on the National Geographic linear channel. The special will be available to stream the following day on both Disney+ and Hulu. The project is presented by the National Geographic Society in partnership with Rolex and produced by Offspring Films. Coinciding with the broadcast, the November single-topic issue of National Geographic magazine focuses entirely on the planet’s interconnected ocean basins, supported by an immersive digital experience on natgeo.com featuring 3D cartographic visualizations.
Narrated by Auliʻi Cravalho, set sail across all five ocean basins in Expedition: Saving Our Seas, premiering Friday, November 13 at 9/8c on National Geographic. Streaming next day on @DisneyPlus and @hulu.